


til I'm laughing alone

by 1248



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, Explosions, Gen, and then right back to the angst, centered on dream, fae au of dream smp dream, general fae levels of indentured servitude and forcing people to do things, non-chronological storytelling, quick interval for george sapnap friendship momence, this is about characters not creators, warning for minor violence no one gets seriously injured
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 12:09:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29700345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1248/pseuds/1248
Summary: As long as he can remember, Dream has had two names.Prince Dream is what the court calls him. He likes being Dream. It’s a pretty name, and he uses it to make jokes, sometimes.The court likes his jokes, even if they never smile.-Dream is the changeling prince of the Winter court. He's very fortunate to have been gifted a new life of such luxury and consequence.If only he could be made to understand that.
Kudos: 21





	til I'm laughing alone

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first dream smp fic.... my genius partner brought up fae au and i blacked out and woke up with 20 pages of dream fic. please note that this is based off the smp character (and the manhunt vibes cause i love them) and not the actual content creator. 
> 
> this is inspired by my partners upcoming techo & phil fae au that will be linked as soon its posted, i will absolutely shill for it as soon as possible, they are such a good writer and my beloved collab partner
> 
> there may or may not be another chapter in the works but for now this bit stands mostly on its own

As long as he can remember, Dream has had two names.

Prince Dream is what the court calls him. He likes being Dream. It’s a pretty name, and he uses it to make jokes, sometimes. 

The court likes his jokes, even if they never smile. 

He doesn’t like his other name. Only the Queen and the King use it. It’s bad. It’s for orders, and punishments, and secrets.

Last summer, the Queen forbade him to share his other name, and now he can’t even say it in an empty room with the door shut and locked. He’s tried.

It’s hard even to have the word in his head. But he has to think it if he wants to remember it. 

The Queen says it’s the one his human parents gave him. She says it’s the most important word he’ll never say. She says it’s who he really is, and it lets her tell him what to do.

Once, Dream asked why his parents would give him a name at all, if it was just for making him do things. She had smiled (not the one she gives the court, not the one she gives when he tries to make her laugh) and told him that humans love to name things, especially things that shouldn’t be named.

He asked if he could give her a name. 

And she had stopped smiling, and said his name. She’d told him: don’t ask any more questions.

-

Dream doesn’t like being a human. Humans are weak. Humans get sick. Humans grow old and die. Humans are able to lie and more than that, they’re _expected_ to. 

Humans, he’s found over painful trial and error, doesn’t have the same insane physical resilience that many of the fae do.

Namely, the ones currently stalking the forest floor and crooning his name.

“Dreaaaaam! Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

It’s weird that they always try calling for him, like he’s a stray dog or something. Don’t they know they’re just giving him their locations?

“Oh, _Dreaaaam?_ It’s your dear friend, Sapnap! I’m here to come and rescue you from the cold! ...Dream?”

Leaning back on his tree truck, Dream watches Sapnap peek around a pine tree that he’s fairly certain he couldn’t have fit behind the first time he tried running away, much less now. 

A wind blows through the forest, and he suppresses a shiver as it somehow manages to cut through his carefully woven and enchanted coat to nip at his skin.

Sapnap, a long ways below him, doesn’t even flinch as the wind pulls at the thin tunic he’s wearing. The sleeves only go to his elbows. It’s hateful.

Dream is torn from his jealous contemplation of the constitution of the summer-born fae when he hears the soft slide of leaves against fabric from the forest below, back and off to the side of his current field of view.

Carefully, slowly, he twists his torso and checks the forest floor below.

He stops breathing when he sees a figure hunched at the base of his tree. It takes the space of time it takes him to think he’s absolutely fucked for him to realise that the figure is George, who in addition is not actually looking up at him nor down at the specially attuned compass he'd been given.

Instead, his gaze is trained intently on the oblivious Sapnap, who has moved on to calling Dream’s name hopefully as he kicks various piles of snow. There’s some dripping wet slush in George’s hand. Sapnap is yawning, leaning back and stretching out his arms.

George pulls back his arm and _lobs_ the slush at a speed and force Dream honestly didn’t think he was capable of.

Sapnap sees George out of the corner of his eye, and attempts to dodge at the _exact_ right time for the slush to hit him right in the neck and slide into his tunic. His eyes go wide and he _shrieks_ as the ice instantly starts steaming off of his skin, but the damage has been done.

George, for his part, is on his knees, practically sobbing as he collapses against the base of Dream’s tree. 

After a moment taken to desperately stop any ice from falling down his pants as well as his shirt, Sapnap is stomping over to his hysterical friend, cussing him out and trying to grab him by the front of his shirt.

It’s all so good, so _stupid_ that Dream can’t help just one high-pitched wheeze of laughter, escaping from behind the hand over his mouth like steam from a teakettle as he looks away to try to collect himself.

Suddenly, there’s silence. 

Dream looks back down and meets two sets of equally astonished eyes.

“YOU-” starts Sapnap, going right from shocked to determined as he releases his friend’s shirt and reaches over his shoulder for his bow.

“-can _laugh_?” finished George, still dumbfounded and sat firmly on his ass in the snow.

Dream grimaces to himself, reflexively ducking his head as he slips his hand out from under his mask.

He’s already got his escape route planned out, but…

In the moment before he takes off running across the treetops, while Sapnap is swearing and trying to notch an arrow, he pauses and looks down. 

“Hey,” he says.

Both of them immediately stop, Sapnap freezing with his arrow halfway drawn and George in the middle of getting to his feet.

“What?” asks Sapnap, just on the edge of exasperated.

“You guys…” he says solemnly, making eye contact with each of them in turn, “heard _nothing_.”

And then he breaks into a dead sprint, clearing a slightly risky jump to the next pine, and then nailing the landing when he leaps onto the next.

Barely behind him, but growing further away, he can still hear Sapnap bellow: “ _You have a rotten sense of humor!”_ and the resulting shriek of laughter when he flips him off over his shoulder.

-

They've started forcing Dream to come to the court meetings. Which is unfair and stupid for many reasons that everyone knows but chooses to ignore.

First: he's not fae. So, really, why should they have him there at all?

Second: no one actually wants him there. This one is self-explanatory.

Third: he may be the prince, but no one actually cares about his thoughts on fae politics, which is good, because he has none.

Fourth: this is obviously a punishment for trying to run away during almost every court meeting for the last few years. Well, that wouldn't be a problem if they didn't keep hunting him down, would it?

Fifth: it's not like anyone is paying enough attention to him to stop him from leaving if he feels like it.

After about an hour of watching the Queen say a bunch of things about humans, and borders, and life debt trading and watching the Fall Queen smile and nod along for most of it, Dream is about ready to leave.

He's been placed at what no one will call, but is universally acknowledged to be the children's table. Even though he is nearly a teenager, and probably shouldn't be there. Fae had a habit of getting confused about the ages of mortals, though, so it wasn't worth complaining about.

He doesn't particularly like sitting with some of the other kids, either. George sometimes came along with his father when the Winter court would all come out to hunt him down, and based on the wide eyed looks he kept giving Dream, he hadn't forgotten everything Dream had shouted the last time they caught him.

Which was stupid, because it was none of his business, anyway. 

Speaking of business, the Fall Queen had finally found something she didn't want to smile and nod about. It had something to do with changelings, which Dream would normally actually want to hear, but he wasn't about to waste his chance while the Queen was busy giving the Fall Queen her murder-smile.

Making hard eye contact with George, and motioning for silence, he pretended to drop a fork and slid smoothly under the table to grab it. 

The thing about the kids’ table, and particularly the Fall court, is that it was kind of unnecessarily long for when the Spring court came to visit and brought their small herd of offspring. So when it was just the Fall court visiting, it was mostly just empty space, since they pretty much never brought any kids with them. 

So it wasn't too hard for him to crawl unimpeded underneath the table, to the end closest to the exit. He only stumbled over one set of shoes, but no one really paid attention when the owner of the little shoes complained so he carried on.

He kept a careful eye out for the shoes of the guards posted around the room, but none of them moved at all. Probably interested in whatever discussion was currently making the dry leaves in the Fall Queen's hair rattle like that.

Before he knew it, he was right by the open doors at the end of the hall. He just had to get from under the tablecloth and out the doors without being noticed.

Dream waited as patiently as he could, pressing his fingernails into the carpet while he listened for a distraction.

After a while, it came. The two Queens finally settled their argument, and there was a brief pause before the Queen said something about a toast.

As soon as he heard the first glass clink, he darted out from under the table and through the doors, completely unnoticed.

He breathed out heavily and started walking as quickly and quietly as he could down the side of the main hall, since running through the halls tended to tip them off too early.

Then he heard a small voice pipe up from the banquet hall, and there was a moment of ominous silence from the room. And then all at once there was the sound of people rushing to their feet, and several adults shouting his name at once.

Oh, that little _snitch_ was absolutely gonna get it. The next time he saw George-

"Dream, _stop!_ "

He heard someone shout from down the hall, and immediately abandoned his vengeful thoughts to take off on a sprint down the hall towards the kitchens.

Good thing he'd actually come up with a plan in case he got caught leaving the court meeting. 

He sprinted towards the kitchen doors, slamming through the most inconvenient paths he knew of as fast as he could. There were several reasons that he’d chosen the kitchens for his purposes, this time around.

First, they were very confusing to navigate. There were separate rooms for spice storage, butchering, dishwashing, actual cooking, food storage, equipment storage, and more. And the rooms were all connected, in various ways, with only one of them having a path leading outside.

Second, he thought as he stole several handfuls of leftover cured ham off of a cutting board and crammed one fistful into his mouth and the other into his pants pocket; stocking up on food was always easy in the kitchen.

Third. He tucked himself into a cupboard that faced the doorway leading into another room. There were plenty of hiding spaces for people small enough to fit.

And fourth, and most importantly. He reached out when his pursuer came through the doorway, and stabbed the knife from the cutting board into the side of his ankle, glancing off the big knob of bone and swiftly pulling it back as the guard howled and fell to his knees. 

The kitchens had _plenty_ of knives. 

Dream danced out of reach of the man and raced to the exit, swiftly letting himself out and closing it after him.

He glanced down at the bloody knife and chucked it in a different part of the garden to hopefully confuse anyone tracking him. Some of the strategy books he’s read had specifically said slicing the Achilles tendon was how to incapacitate an enemy from on the ground. But he had felt too grossed out to actually do it.

Hopefully, he would be able to get away without having to do something like that.

He was pretty prepared this time. He had his good coat, which he managed to talk some of the court into putting minor enchantments on for cold resistance. He'd long memorised his survival book, and mostly memorised the ones on combat for the smaller races (surprisingly there were none specifically for kids).

And this time he'd studied maps of the surrounding area, so he wouldn't get lost. He felt pretty good about this one.

-

It was a few hours later, and he was way more cold and tired than when he started, but no less confident. 

He'd lost the hunting party a while ago, by a combination of walking through spots which didn't leave clear tracks and sprinkling handfuls of stolen spices behind him when he did, to throw the bloodhounds off. (The kitchen route was the _best_.)

Now he was going from tree to tree, which was relatively risky if spotted, but he was positive he had a good head start. And beyond that, climbing was _really_ fun and most guards sucked at it, going from all the times they tried fetching him from a tree for his lessons and ended up just begging him to come down.

On that note, he was starting to hear some people calling his name in the distance.

Maybe someone had the enchanted compass the Queen kept threatening to make, specially attuned to him. 

He sucked in a breath and slung his pack back over his shoulder, clambering farther up into his tree, trying to be as quiet as possible. He was hitting the height limit from which he could safely jump down, even assuming he landed in a snow drift.

The voices drifted closer by, although he still couldn’t get a visual on any of them.

“Any footprints?”

“No. And it’s getting dark.”

Dream glanced sidelong at the patches of sky he could see. It was true, the sun was almost halfway below the horizon. That made this something of a personal best for him, considering he had always been caught during daylight in the past.

“Prince Dream?” called one of the guards, sounding especially put-upon as he did.

His companion sighed, stepping into Dream’s line of sight and quickly scanning the forest floor, the lines of his face tight and irritated.

“He’s probably doubled back by now. Not even young Prince Dream would dare to spend the winter night alone.”

A giggle rose in Dream’s chest, and he covered his mouth to stop it from escaping. These idiots didn’t think he was serious about running away! No _wonder_ they were about to give up.

“But if he hasn’t…” started the first guard, sounding unsure.

The second guard interrupted him. 

“If he hasn’t, there are other ways to locate him. Let us go while there is still sunlight.” 

There was a brief silence, and then Dream heard their footsteps fade into the distance. They were really leaving!

He waited for as long as he could stand before he dropped down a few levels in his tree and looked around more carefully. Sure enough, there were two sets of footprints, leading away into the forest.

It was probably too early to celebrate, but he stuck out his tongue in the general direction of the castle anyways. Finally, _finally_ , he’d gotten far enough that they’d been forced to regroup instead of just bringing him back within the day.

Lowering himself carefully to the ground, he set off in the direction of the portal leading to the human world. It was pretty easy to place himself, considering the guards that tipped him off which direction the castle was and he could see the sun setting to the east in extravagant fashion, shining orange light through the forest and making the trees look almost as if they were burning.

It should be only a few days on foot after this, working from how long it took the Queen and her guard to navigate similar distances, and accounting for the fact that he had to move on foot. It was fine. He’d stretch his rations as far as possible, and he wouldn’t go thirsty, as long as he didn’t lose the bottomless water flask he’d lifted from a visiting noble of the Spring court.

As darkness fell and he moved into the more frigid part of the wilds, the temperature plummeted sharply. His chest and arms stayed warm inside his magic coat, but his toes started to go numb inside his boots. Dream had never actually been outside the castle at night before, and while he logically knew that the nights would be freezing, it was much different to actually experience the frigid wind insinuating icy fingers into his garments and stinging his face.

He would have to stop and make camp. Initially, he’d planned against lighting a fire so early into his escape, with the idea that it would be an obvious way for him to be tracked. But that was before he felt the chill currently working its way down to his bones. 

Even with the lessened tree cover, it didn’t take too long to collect a pile of discarded tree branches, but it felt like forever that he was hopelessly striking a flint and steel and praying for the wood to catch. But eventually a small, reluctant fire formed, and Dream huddled as close as he could without actually sitting on the flame, trying to get warm.

The woods somehow looked more hostile than he remembered in the flickering light produced by his fire, but he paid it no mind. Dream prided himself on not being afraid of anything, unmoved by the scary stories the servants used to tell him when he was little. 

The monsters that roamed the wilds, the witches that salivated at the thought of child flesh, the phantom archers that were nothing but bone… none of them were real. Sure, he’d never actually been in the wilds at night, and never this part of them, but he’d had enough experience in the parts he _was_ used to, both on sanctioned day-trips and would-be escape attempts, that he knew there was nothing to concern himself over.

Nothing but the animals lived out here.

The rattling in the distance was nothing but branches in the wind.

The faint hissing and spitting sounds were foxes in a territory dispute.

The slight, almost inaudible groaning, it was... was just the trees moving with the wind. Roots straining against soil.

Dream noticed he was hugging himself as he surveyed his surroundings, and immediately forced his arms back to his sides. He was not afraid. He could take care of himself. He was not afraid of shadows, or monsters, or-

A dark shape lurched into view and in an instant, Dream was on his feet. He barely remembered to grab his pack before he was clawing at the nearest tree, scrabbling desperately for handholds, feeling splinters push into the flesh of his palms and under his fingernails.

It took only a second to get out of arm’s reach, but he climbed higher than strictly necessary before stopping and sitting on a branch. His breathing was fast, and his heart was trying to beat its way out of his chest. And then he turned and looked down below, and his heart stopped.

It wasn’t a guard.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t even humanoid.

Rolling slowly and silently over the snowy ground, it almost looked like a pile of leaves being pushed by the wind. But then it shifted slightly, and Dream felt cold down to his marrow.

There were three dark spots aimed in his direction, roughly in the shape of two eyes and a mouth. Whatever it was, it was alive. And it was watching him.

He looked back, frozen with fear. What did it want? Could it climb? Why wasn’t it saying anything?

After what felt like an eternity, the creature turned its empty eyes away from him, and resumed drifting across the forest floor. It didn’t go far, circling around his campfire and then returning to the base of the tree, never making a single sound.

While he could not discern any emotions from its crude facial features, Dream got the definite sense that it was waiting for him to drop down. Not daring to take his eyes off it, he reached up for a branch and crawled slightly higher into the tree. It watched him, unblinking.

He would have to take a route above the ground, he decided. Whatever that thing was, he didn’t even want to get close to it. But it only took a quick glance around his surroundings before his heart sank.

A full day of travel hadn’t managed to get him out of the forest, but it had gotten him to the colder and more sparse part of the wilds. Meaning, while there were other trees in eyeshot, there were none he dared leap to, unless he wanted to meet an early end plummeting to the forest floor. 

He’d effectively treed himself. And it would only get colder, with no cover from the wind and no fire to warm his hands by. Dream looked down at the creature, and it looked back with the dark pits it had for eyes.

“ _Leave me alone,”_ he hissed. It didn’t move.

Why couldn’t it just leave? Why didn’t anything ever go his way?

A sudden stinging pricked his eyes, and he rubbed at them furiously, scowling. He _didn’t_ cry. He _didn’t_ need help. He only needed himself. He could figure this out all by himself.

He glared at the thing at the bottom of the tree, anger replacing his despair. It was hardly even alive, and it wanted to kill him. It was so stupid it couldn’t even talk, but it thought it could outsmart him.

He grabbed his pack and started to rifle through it, looking for _something_ he could use. If he had a rope, he could have tried to sling it across to another tree and get away like that. If he had a bow and arrows, he could shoot it until it died. If he could just light its stupid leaf-body on fire, then- 

Dream put down his pack and pulled his flint and steel from his pocket in one motion. He _could_ light it up. Sure, he’d need to get a little closer, and it might try and set his tree on fire, but it could work.

Slinging his pack back over his shoulders, he crept down the tree, moving as quickly as he dared. The creature was almost motionless, moving only to better keep him in its line of sight.

He stopped climbing when he was as close to the thing as he could stand. He was close enough that he probably could have kicked it if he dangled his legs down.

Lying down on his stomach and getting his flint and steel in one hand, he stared at it. It didn’t seem to understand that he was about to kill it.

“Last chance.” 

It shifted slightly closer to the base of the tree, never looking away. That was answer enough for him.

“Fine.”

Moving the flint to his free hand, he positioned them directly above the creature and began striking them together. A few sparks flew in its direction, fizzling out against its skin.

It hissed loudly, and Dream knocked the steel into the flint harder, watching with trepidation as it rippled angrily and lurched almost out of his reach.

Finally, he produced a sizeable shower of sparks aimed in its direction, a few of which caught on the thing’s dry exterior. Dream could have started cheering as several tiny flames came to life. Instead he pulled his arms out of reach, pocketing his flint and steel, and watched carefully.

It didn’t flee in fear as he had predicted, but instead produced another hissing sound, different from the previous. It reminded him distantly of a struck match.

As he stared, the thing swiveled its head back to look at him. There was a bright white flashing in the pits of its eyes, as if it was burning from the inside. 

Keeping his eyes on it, he reached up for the branch immediately above him. Something felt off.

And then the world went white. 

He was falling, landing hard on the ground, his head knocking painfully against something. He was only aware of a loud ringing, and a pulsing agony coming from several places at once.

Dream only had time to press his hands over his burning, bleeding face before everything went dark.

-

Several weeks ago, during the meeting between the Winter and the Fall courts, Prince Dream of the Winter court had tried to run away back to the human world.

This didn’t come as a surprise to anyone who was familiar with the royal family of the Winter court. They all knew that the prince was young, and human, and restless. It wasn’t hard to figure out that the queen had told him too early that he was a changeling. His tutors had probably failed to impress upon him how lucky he had been, to be traded into princehood. It was obvious that the staff had been too lenient with him. 

Whatever the reason, his regular escapes had been a source of entertainment for the rest of the courts for some time.

Catching a human child in the winter wilds was an interesting diversion, and welcome time taken away from the dull meetings with the unfriendly fae of the Winter court.

That the winter queen could not or would not control the prince was also entertaining, in its own way. Was she too cold to care for the troubles her heir caused, or was it her version of an indulgent allowance? It would have been more interesting if there was any chance of a confirmation of either theory. 

However, Mab was as impossible to read as she always had been. It seemed the other courts were eternally doomed to wonder.

At least, until the prince failed to be recovered before nightfall.

It had never happened before. Perhaps he was growing more cunning with age, or more likely, the winter queen had finally decided not to bother recovering her wayward changeling.

Either way, what intrigue! The head of the Winter court, forced to write off over ten years of careful cultivation due to the stubbornness of a human child… to say the other courts were delighted by the development wouldn’t be an unfair assessment.

It was a shame, though, that they would never see what became of the willful Prince Dream. He would not grow to his full potential as either proof of the ice queen’s secret sentimentality or her impenetrable cold-heartedness. 

While the fae of the other courts at once smiled to think of the winter queen bested and sighed to think of the entertainment lost, the Winter court remained as chilly and distant as ever. The members of the Winter court were not ones for gossip, after all, most of them taciturn and reserved by nature.

But even if they were, they took no pleasure in discussing the prince, who had indeed been recovered the morning after his last escape, on the verge of death. No one wanted to talk about the arctic winds that whipped through the halls after the Queen had taken the time to visit the prince after the healer had finished attending to him. 

And above all, no one wanted to talk about the small, silent specter that had wandered the castle rooms in the time since, watching them all from behind a pale, smiling mask.

-

It was time for the Winter court to visit the Summer court. 

No one is pleased by this. 

Under the heat of the summer sun, the Winter fae were different. Their cool and calm demeanors melt until they are cruel and impatient. They do not sweat or swelter as mortals do, but just the discomfort of being out of one’s element is enough to push them out of the refuge of placidity.

As for the Summer court, they barely tolerate the presence of their old enemies in their domain. The cold winds that follow Queen Mab’s procession are one thing, but the sudden cold snap that kills fields’ worth of strawberry plants is another. Tempers run hotter than usual, and tongues are barely held. 

But it was to be expected. These visits, while seldom productive and never enjoyable, are necessary to maintain balance.

The Summer Queen speaks long and loud about long winters shortening spring and making for a duller summer. The Winter Queen, looking bored, deflects responsibility onto the Fall court, delaying the onset of winter due to poor organisation. 

The Summer Queen insists on immediate changes. The Winter Queen refuses, citing bureaucracy. The Summer Queen asks many questions, leaving no time for a response. The Winter Queen obliges her by answering only the last of her inquiries, and doing so vaguely.

The members of the Winter court sit motionless, indistinguishable from statues. The Summer court chatters among themselves, the conversation running harsher and louder than it normally would.

And so on.

Sapnap, the young son of a Summer noble, one of the few young ones that is forced to attend these meetings in preparation for a future political career, slouched in his seat and sighed heavily. It wouldn’t be so bad if there were other children. Children that were not the cold, stiff progeny of the Winter fae. 

Case in point, a boy about his age was sitting across the table from him. He’d hardly moved over the course of the dinner, barely touching his food. Upon his face sat a pair of strange, dark glasses. Sapnap was pretty sure he shouldn’t be wearing them inside, much less to a political dinner hosted by another court, but he got away with it since he was technically a guest.

Sapnap hadn’t been so lucky, having had his headband confiscated by the servants before he could even enter the room. A choice he wondered at the wisdom behind, since it wasn’t just an accessory.

See, some of the fae were more powerful than others, and control over one’s abilities took time. For those who were naturally powerful, it took more time. His tutors had gotten frustrated with his slow progress and given him a little bit of a cheat. 

His headband was an enchanted scrap of fabric that made sure, even when he wasn’t centered mentally or emotionally, he was fully in control of his powers. And now it was bundled up with the stupidly extravagant overclothes of the Winter court fae, and he was getting pretty desperate to leave the room and let off some steam.

If only the winter prince was still around. He would have already swung off a chandelier out a window or something, and the whole room would have been in uproar, and his father might have let Sapnap out to help track him.

He noticed he was bouncing his leg, and switched to tapping his fingers against the tablecloth. After a moment, he saw that he was leaving little sets of scorch marks on the white fabric and quickly put his hands in his lap, wringing at his napkin.

A quick check told him the Queens were still having their stupid boring conversation about seasonal time distortion. Down the table, his father was deep in conversation with another noble of the Summer court. His mother was reluctantly entertaining an unfriendly-looking Winter fae. Neither of them would catch his eye.

That was about the time the boy across him kicked his ankle, _hard_.

Immediately, he was drawn back to his table, glaring furiously at the other child. Oh, so he was too stuck up for conversation but he wasn’t above kicking? Well, he would just have to- He stopped drawing his foot back as he registered what the other child was saying.

“Your _lap_ ! Look _down_ , idiot!” the kid was hissing urgently.

Sapnap looked down and shrieked. He had set his stupid napkin _on fire_!

Before he could do anything more than pull the napkin up so it wouldn’t set his pants on fire, the other boy lunged over the table and dumped his water into Sapnap’s lap.

Sapnap shrieked again, this time because he’d just had ice water dumped on his lap. 

Actually… he looked closer and saw white fluff mixed in with the rapidly melting water. Was that _snow_?

He looked up, mouth hanging open, to meet the other boy’s embarrassed smile. 

“Sorry it was so cold. I freeze things when I-”

The boy was interrupted by a throat clearing. They both looked over to see, much to Sapnap’s mortification, the entirety of _both_ courts was looking at them with a mixture of fondness and amusement (Summer) as well as irritation and disdain (Winter).

Sapnap’s dad was shaking his head and frowning. Sapnap looked down, feeling his cheeks redden. 

“Are you two quite finished?” came the voice of the Summer Queen, sounding impatient.

Sapnap gave a tiny nod, and saw the other boy mirror him out of the corner of his eye.

“You may be excused, to collect yourselves,” came the voice of the Winter Queen, her delivery making it into an order.

Sapnap gave a bigger nod, and jumped to his feet, not daring to look anywhere but the floor. He could hear a chair scraping against the floor as the other boy did the same. In unison, they marched to the great door at the end of the hall, and let themselves out. As soon as the door closed after them, the talking resumed from within, muffled.

He finally looked up from the floor, to see the other boy looking very pale indeed, his glasses pushed up from his face while he wiped his eyes. It really seemed like he was on the verge of tears, which was strange to Sapnap, who’d gotten the general impression Winter fae didn’t have feelings. It made him vaguely uncomfortable.

“Hey, uh…” he trailed off. He didn’t even know his name.

“George,” said the other boy, thickly.

“George. I’m… sorry I got you into trouble. I didn’t mean to.”

The other boy heaved a big trembly breath, but stopped wiping his eyes.

“It’s… it’s ok, it’s just. The Queen is _mad_ at me.”

“I’m sorry,” repeated Sapnap reflexively, a little confused. Surely she’d get over it?

“It’s just… I don’t know. Prince Dream tried to run away all those times, and the Queen must have gotten tired of it, and now he’s all…” 

George trailed off, and gestured vaguely at his face. Sapnap had no idea what he was talking about, but nodded. Wasn’t the prince dead?

Sapnap tried to be reassuring. “Well, I don’t think she’ll kill you, George. She’s way too important to just kill some kid.” 

There was a pause, and George blinked at him.

Sapnap tried again. “I mean, it’s messed up that she would just leave the-”  
  


“Wait, what are you talking about?” George interrupted.

“You think the Winter Queen is going to kill you.”

“No, I- What? Why would she do that?”

“You _just_ said that-”

“I said that I didn’t want to end up like Dream!”

“Well, he’s dead!”  
  


“He’s really not!”

“Yes, he is!”

“No, he isn’t!”

Sapnap was taking a deep breath so he could _really_ shout over George that _obviously_ the prince was dead, and he should really know better since he was actually from the Winter court, when the banquet doors started to open and his mouth snapped shut on it’s own.

It was a servant of the Summer court, with her face just barely showing through the gap and a finger held to her lips as she fixed them both with a glare. Sapnap could feel himself shrinking under the force of her disapproval.

When he was little, she had been the one to tutor him on table etiquette and how to speak politely. It was clear in the way she regarded him that she had not forgotten this fact.

“Are you two _trying_ to get in trouble?” she asked, shooting George and _especially_ Sapnap a nasty look. They shook their heads in unison.

“Then go out and play or something. Anything that’s not standing out in the hall and making noise. Understood?”

“Yes, miss,” whispered George.

“I understand,” mumbled Sapnap.

Then the door once again swung shut, and they looked at each other for a long moment.

“I can show you the court garden and maybe we can play tag?” suggested Sapnap, already starting to walk down the hall.

“Okay,” said George, falling into step behind him. “But if you burn me with your fire magic, I’ll freeze you to the ground.”

“Seems fair.”

-

Dream doesn’t want to live in the fae world anymore.

It’s cold there. No one likes him, not really. He’s the only human he’s ever met. No one listens to him, just because he can lie and they can’t. They treat him like he’s different. 

He’s been doing his reading. He knows how to survive outside. He could live on his own. Or he could go back to his actual, human parents. They would probably take him back, if he asked nicely.

Most importantly, he can’t stay in the Winter court. Everyone knows ( _everyone says, when they think he isn’t listening_ ) that humans don’t last in the court. They’re too soft.

Dream knows he’s soft. He tries not to be, but he is.

So if he can’t fix it, he just needs to go. And since they won't let him go, he'll just have to leave on his own.

They don’t let him outside much. The wilds are viciously cold, and he gets sick easily. It’s a human trait, they tell him. He wishes there was something he could read to teach him how to avoid being so human.

But, none of the books he read covered anything like that. So he just follows the advice that they did give him, and puts all his coats on at once, wrapping his longest scarf around and around until it covers everything but his eyes. He wears his highest boots and his pants with feathers on the inside.

He stuffs his pockets with some of the candies that the court slips him when he sees them in the halls, so he can keep his stamina up. In his arms, Dream holds his survival book, just in case he forgets something and needs to check.

A few times a season, there’s a meeting that almost the whole court has to attend. Another court comes to visit, and there’s a lot of secret arguing, where they speak gently but say things that make each other angry.

This one is with the Summer court, and these ones always take the longest because the Queen hates the summer Queen. Dream has noticed the more the Queen hates someone, the more she speaks with them whenever they get the chance.

It doesn’t make much sense, but he knows this is his chance to get away without being stopped. Even if the guards see him, they don’t know his secret name, and they can’t actually force him to stay like the Queen can.

(Sometimes, Dream wonders why she hasn’t ordered him to stay, even though she technically can. Maybe it’s because she secretly wants him to leave as much as everyone else.)

The walk out to the front hall of the castle feels longer than ever. He can’t stop looking around for a guard, but everyone must be at the big meeting.

Even at the front gates, there’s no guards at all. Maybe it’s so the guests can leave anytime they want?

After looking around to make absolutely sure there’s nobody watching, he reaches forward and pushes at one of the intricate metal gates. It swings outwards easily under his hand. 

One of the guards has once told him that they used special magic that made them light for the Winter court, and heavy for anyone else. It’s pretty cool to see that it actually works, though.

A bitter wind cuts through the tiny gap in the gates, and he shivers as it claws at the little bit of his face that’s visible. 

Dream knows that’s magic, too. One of the friendlier members of the court said it makes it so that even though the castle grounds are snowy and cold, they’re never windy or really dangerous. All the bad things are trapped outside.

A shiver suddenly shakes its way down his body, even though he’s actually sweating a little bit under all his gear. He ignores it.

He steps confidently out into the outside world, ready to go somewhere where he’s finally wanted.

-

It’s in a little under a day that Dream is dragged back through the gates, kicking, screaming and frostbitten. 

The survival book hadn’t really told him what you’re supposed to do when someone’s chasing you.

-

The court didn’t really like to speak to Dream anymore.

He was pretty sure it wasn’t a planned effort, but it was hard to ignore. Before, the older ever-present members of the court would tell him stories when they saw him in the halls. Quiz him on his knowledge of fae rules and society. 

The newer, less powerful fae would offer him little tokens, smilingly knowingly when he refused to accept them until given explicit permission. It was a sort of game they’d play, and he’d been getting better at the fine art of trading favors with a fae noble.

Now, the old ones would watch him thoughtfully when they thought he couldn’t see, and quiet their conversations when he entered the room. The young ones were worse, refusing to look at his mask, and speaking with a distant politeness Dream had never had court members direct at him before.

It was probably stupid of him to be surprised that they were so superstitious. The mask had sort of creeped him out at first, too, when he managed to catch his reflection out of the corner of his eye, but he had quickly gotten over it. 

Now it was being bare-faced that made him uncomfortable, even in an empty room with the door shut and locked. Somehow, the painted smile made him feel safe.

Dream had always been told a human’s strength lay in their adaptability, and thought that it meant trickery and deception. But he guessed this was another kind of adapting. The members of the Winter court were spending months struggling to get used to what had only taken him a few weeks.

So he tried to behave, and gave them time. He paid attention during his lessons, only stole when he knew it would go unnoticed, and didn’t go out of his way to vex the guards or servants that attended to him. He spoke only when spoken to.

It would be some time until winter came, after all. Currently, there was no pressing need for him to dodge his lessons and pilfer anything useful in preparation for an escape. 

His good behavior only seemed to creep them out more. No one seemed to want to look him right in the mask, and even when they called for him, they did so reluctantly and kept interactions short. George, one of the few children that made semi-regular appearances in the castle alongside his parents, had gone from being almost friendly to openly terrified of him.

It seemed a little unfair that they would be so disturbed by someone wearing a mask. The winter fae were well known for the coldness, their supposed complete lack of feelings. Dream knew better, that they were just as petty and emotionally motivated as anyone else, but were just much better at hiding it. 

Everyone in the court wore masks, but only his could be taken off. 

The only one who treated him the same was the Queen. She still called him in for their regular talks. She didn’t seem alarmed by the extra layer between them, but maybe it helped that she’d also seen what was underneath.

Dream didn’t want to (couldn’t) ask if he was required to wear the mask in public, so instead he wondered out loud if the court would be less worried about him if he took it off sometimes.

The Queen reached out and tapped a nail against his mask, right over one of the worst scars from the accident. Without meaning to, he tensed up. She rarely touched him.

“Do you want them to see your scars?” she asked, her voice as gentle as snowfall.

“No,” he confessed, wondering at how small his voice sounded all of a sudden.

She withdrew her finger from his face, and placed a hand, ever so softly, on his shoulder. Then, the Queen smiled, and it was one of her kinder ones.

“Then, no. You may not remove it.”

Dream nodded, a strange feeling overtaking him and making feel light, like he was drifting on a strong wind. He barely stopped his shoulders from sagging.

“You are dismissed,” said the Queen, turning to contemplate one of the spindly leafless trees she kept by her throne. 

He nodded again, and turned to leave. 

The feeling overwhelmed him again, this time with a flood of recognition that almost had him stumbling over his own feet. 

From his head down to the tip of his toes, he was overwhelmingly relieved.

-

After being dismissed, her ward left with shaky, uneven steps.

She watched him go, following his evergreen coat with her eyes as he closed the door after him.

Dream was a tricky one. Humans often were, but this was her first time raising one from so young. It was rather unlike training up a servant or a champion. He craved her attention and approval, but without the framework of duty, he was reduced to scheming and trickery in order to validate his existence.

Case in point, the little unauthorised trips.

Dream ran only because he knew he would be pursued. She’s known that since he ventured out the first time, equipped to freeze to death in the winter wilds and little else. And he’d been obliged, with a search party composed of everyone at hand in the winter court, save herself.

It was only natural that the behavior would continue, after being rewarded suchly. There was no other way. To have her ward, human or no, perish due to the incompetence of her court… it would be a show of weakness, make no mistake. So she compromised with a lesser show of weakness; sending an armed escort to fetch the prince time after time.

She supposed such a delicate equilibrium was doomed to crumble sooner or later.

Dream had been lost. Dream had been maimed. She’d had to debase herself, using her own power to find the wayward prince. To cover the evidence of what they all knew to be the truth, but had never seen first-hand.

Truly, the wounds were not the worst she’d seen, not by any measure. She’d seen humans inflict more severe on themselves firsthand, when anguished or enraged or grieved. Fingernails leaving bloody trails across faces, teeth gnashing and chewing on themselves like beasts, flesh deliberately pressed to hot coals… 

His injuries were minor, relatively speaking. But it was the placement that was so regrettable.

For the rest of his years, the court would only have to look at his face to have a reminder of his mortality, the guttering flame that was his existence. They’d see the wounds that never healed as they should, and know he was only temporary, only entertainment, only waiting for a strong wind to snuff him out.

She would not have her changeling, her ward, her prince rendered so powerless. Nothing of hers was without consequence.

Dream would wear his new face, and he would be stronger for it. 

Dream would try to run, and he would be faster for it.

Dream would be hers, and he would be better for it.


End file.
